


A World of Possibilities

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Class (TV 2016), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Clara being a genuinely great person, Gen, Teacher Student Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8878315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: Matteusz always thought that he was good at English. When he moved to England, however, he found that he was struggling. Thankfully there was a teacher who cared enough to help him, and not just in academic matters.





	1. Books

Before moving to England, Matteusz had thought he'd be able to blend in just fine. He'd been excellent in English classes at school back in Poland, after all. He'd been pretty much the best in his class, and he liked to think that his British accent was very good. He'd been excited to move to England and get even better.

But then he got to the country, he got to the schools, and he discovered that his English was nowhere near as good as it needed to be. English class in an a English school was not learning how to speak. It was studying books- mostly old ones- and being expected to analyse what the author was going on about. Matteusz could barely decipher the flowery language, let alone understand it. Even when they studied more straightforward books, he couldn't get past the books themselves and into writing about them. He hadn't ever realised it would be so difficult.

A few weeks into term, his teacher called for him to stay back after class. Great, he thought to himself as he made his way up to her desk. She was probably going to tell him off for doing so badly. "Matteusz," she said, and she smiled at him. Miss Oswald was a very nice teacher, but it was overshadowed by how often his class spent talking about how they wanted to have sex with her. He didn't understand the appeal.

He paused a moment before responding, figuring out the best way to get the words from his head out into the air. "I'm...sorry, Miss. For doing bad in the work you set. Is not easy for me."

"I know it isn't," she said, and she sounded much kinder than some of his other teachers. His History teacher had been particularly rude. "I understand that you're struggling, but it's GCSE year and you'll need to improve quickly."

Matteusz just heaved a sigh in response, shrugging his shoulders. There didn't seem to be a way to improve so fast- he'd tried everything the internet had suggested.

"As it is, you'll probably pass," she said, and he looked up in surprise. So far he thought he hadn't even understood the work. He hadn't realised that he could pass these subjects. He'd assumed he would have to take another year. "But I'm sure you'd like to do better, because you're a smart boy."

"Am I?" Matteusz blinked in surprise. Back in Poland, he'd been fairly smart. Nothing special, but aiming for high grades. In England, he was lucky to get a D. "I mean...would be nice to do well. Is not likely."

"I think you're very smart," she said. "And so do your science teachers, if you want to know. Understanding is holding you back, that's all."

"I cannot understand any better," he said sadly, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the carpet. "Is not that easy."

"I know," she said. "Do you think that reading a little more would help you?" Matteusz did think that, but his parents didn't have much money as it was, so he couldn't buy any books.

"Maybe. But I cannot afford books," he explained. Miss Oswald frowned at him, crossing over to one of several bookshelves and starting to pick a few things off of it. "No, Miss, is okay," he said. He didn't want people to go without books in lessons. And what if the books ended up getting damaged while he had them?

"Nonsense. I think I can trust you with a few books, can't I?" She strode back over, pressing the books into his arms. "Read them. I'll find you some more when you're done."

"Um, thank you!" He said, rushing to put the books into his bag. He hoped they wouldn't get damaged, because he would probably have to pay for them if they did. And then Miss Oswald wouldn't trust him with more books.

"It's no problem." She patted him on the shoulder, smiling. "I want to see you with an A grade at the end of your exams, young man, so don't you let me down." Matteusz did his best not to get very very scared at that, thanking her again quietly before leaving the room so she couldn't say anything else that would get his hopes up.

He could feel those books weighing heavy in his bag, and he bit his lip. If Miss Oswald was so determined to help him, then, well...he really couldn't let her down.


	2. Ever Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matteusz and Clara talk about books.

Matteusz found the books really difficult at first. He hadn't realised just how far behind he was until he'd started reading something that much younger people were meant to be able to read. It worried him, but he knew he was doing something to help now.

Once he got the hang of everything, it only took him three weeks to finish off the six books that he had been given. And then it was back to Miss Oswald to report on what he'd thought of them. That was another part of it that he hadn't anticipated. Because he was bad at English, people didn't talk to him much, and because of that he couldn't really improve his spoken English. But when he talked to Miss Oswald about the books, he had a chance to get his head around sentence structure. And she seemed pleased with his improvements. Very pleased, giving him a friendly grin and hurrying off to find him more books. Harder ones, this time.

Slowly, he managed to start building up his confidence in his reading. It helped that he didn't have any friends, really, because it meant he had nothing to do when he was out of school, so he just read a lot. The next lot of books was finished within two weeks, and Matteusz was rather proud of himself, honestly. It would have taken him a month to read even one of those books when he'd first come to England. Miss Oswald named him her 'pupil of the month' for that class, and even though he knew it didn't matter and it was just a way of rewarding students who were working sort of hard, he was incredibly happy about it. It meant that he knew what he was doing was working.

His grades in other subjects improved, too, and Matteusz was sure that it was down to Miss Oswald's help. She would smile at him every lesson, and Matteusz would smile back and ignore the mutterings from others in the class about how he must like her. It wasn't like that (and that was half of the problem) and it never would be. He was just so grateful that she was so nice to him all the time and she had helped him like this. Now he might even pass all his GCSEs.

Miss Oswald was more like a friend than a teacher, really. A friend who was really, really invested in getting him to pass his exams. It was nice, because no one else particularly cared. If it hadn't been the only thing his parents ever asked him about, he would have said that even they didn't care about how he did. They didn't care about much to do with who he really was, though. He wished they cared as much about him as a person as Miss Oswald did. She seemed to understand him, and she would eagerly talk to him about the books he's been reading for as long as he had things to say about them. He knew his English was much better than it had used to be.

As they kept talking, Matteusz started to get a good idea as to what Miss Oswald was like as a person. She was kind, and she cared about him genuinely, she cared about everyone she knew and also everyone she didn't. She was also odd. Occasionally she'd mention something about aliens, and her eyes would go wide and she would quickly change the subject with a smile. Matteusz had no idea what that was about, but he didn't mind it too much.

She absolutely had a passion for sci fi books, there was no doubt about that. She also loved history, another one of his favourite subjects, and she had so much knowledge about history from all over. It was amazing and he would happily talk to her for hours every day if he could. Sadly, he could only talk to her at lunchtime, and only if she wasn't busy. After school, she was quite often met by some mysterious man- Matteusz had seen them together a couple of times, and they seemed very secretive about something. He wanted to ask her about it, but he knew he couldn't step out of place. What he had now was wonderful and he was not willing to risk it. 

-

"How are things at home, Matteusz?" Miss Oswald asked him that every so often, and it was scary when she did because he didn't know what to say.

"Things are alright," he would usually answer, and he would do his best to smile. She would frown slightly, and try to hide it, and Matteusz knew that he wasn't fooling anybody. So today, he decided to tell the truth. "We don't have any heating at the moment," he said. "We can't afford it, so it's a bit cold, but it's okay."

Miss Oswald seemed pretty concerned by that, and Matteusz bit his lip and hoped that she wouldn't be angry. "Have your parents talked to the council about it? It's pretty much winter, you'll freeze solid if you don't have heating soon."

"We, um, we already have benefits," he said. He wasn't meant to talk about that, but he knew that the school knew anyway, so Miss Oswald probably knew. "We're meant to be able to pay with that."

"I shouldn't pry any further, but strictly between us, why aren't they enough to pay for the heating?" She leaned forward, frowning again. "Are there any other problems at home you want to talk about?"

He shifted on the spot a little. He really wasn't allowed to talk about it, but he trusted Miss Oswald. "My mother pays for me to attend a Church club and it costs a lot of money." It was mostly a lie. It was the lie that he was allowed to say under some circumstances. It was sort of the truth, just not the whole truth.

"I see. And do you want to go to this church club? If it's educational, I might be able to put in a word with the school and get them to subsidise it. And if you don't want to go, well...just tell her you don't want to?"

It wasn't that simple, but he couldn't say that. He couldn't tell her why he was going, because then she probably wouldn't want to talk to him like this anymore. She would know, and then he couldn't get all these books out on loan and he wouldn't get to talk about them. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said quietly, shifting where he sat perched on the edge of a table. Perhaps he should just leave now, claim next time that he just wasn't feeling well.

"That's okay," Miss Oswald said. "Just know that you can come to me if you want to, okay? If it isn't something you want to do or even if it's hurting you, it can come to me."

"Thank you," he muttered, still looking down at his feet. He wished the conversation would just shift back to books now.

"And now might be a good time to get onto talking about Animal Farm," she said. "Do you know anything about communism?"


End file.
